Durham Town Hall might become pharmacy

DURHAM — With construction on Durham’s new Town Hall moving along, many are wondering what will be done with the town’s old town office.

A local Realtor may have a plan to transform the old building, and the surrounding area as well.

Scott Mitchell of Scott Mitchell Real Estate is interested in converting the 0.9-acre property into a pharmacy, according to Town Administrator Todd Selig. Mitchell has entered into a purchase and sale agreement with the town and placed a $5,000 deposit that will be held in escrow until the $1.3 million sale closes. This sale is contingent on Mitchell fulfilling several requests from the town, such as gaining approval from the Planning Board, the Zoning Board and the Historic District Commission.

Recently, the Zoning Board of Adjustment granted a variance request to Scott Mitchell Real Estate to reduce the number of required parking spaces and the amount of landscaping at the former Cumberland Farms site, located at 5 Dover Road.

“Its been abandoned for probably 12 years,” Selig said of the site. “The idea is to potentially move the Durham Village Garage across the street on Dover Road to the old Cumberland Farms.”

If the move were to happen, this would open up the Durham Village Garage site as a second access point into the Town Office site. At a Town Council meeting on March 4, Mitchell said this new access point could also improve access to the Circle K.

“The renovations of the existing town hall requires access from Newmarket Road and Dover Road, so it would create a new access from Dover Road to the back of a new pharmacy site,” Selig said. “He would integrate the town hall site with the Irving site next door, so there would be a common access way for both sites. He would also construct an additional commercial building at the rear part of the site in the vicinity of where the garage is now, but it would be oriented differently.”

Mitchell plans to meet with the Historic District Commission on July 10 to discuss design plans for the town office site, Selig said. This meeting is significant since the town hall is located in the historic district, which limits what kind of design this new pharmacy could have.

“The pharmacy would not be your typical anytown-USA pharmacy layout. Since the town office is in the historic district, he would need to have the building along the roadway with parking behind it. With most pharmacies you see a sea of parking in front, in this case the building would have to be along Newmarket Road and the parking would have to be behind it,” Selig said.

“He would need to tear down the existing building to do a pharmacy but what he would rebuild would have to be historically relevant, it would have to have historical features that would allow it to blend in with the historic district.”